Prothena Announces Appointment of Brandon Smith as Chief Business Officer

DUBLIN, Ireland, March 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Prothena Corporation plc (NASDAQ:PRTA), a clinical-stage neuroscience company with expertise in protein misfolding, today announced the appointment of Brandon Smith as Chief Business Officer. Mr. Smith will be responsible for leading Prothena’s business development initiatives, portfolio strategic planning and alliance management activities.

“Brandon is a proven leader with a diverse experience across multiple sectors of the biotech industry and we are pleased to welcome him to our executive team,” said Gene Kinney, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Prothena. “As we focus on expanding our neuroscience portfolio through both internal discovery and external collaboration, Brandon’s broad corporate and business development expertise, extensive industry network and successful track record of advancing growth strategies will further strengthen our team.”

“Prothena is uniquely positioned to make important advances in the development of new therapies for devastating diseases,” said Mr. Smith. “I’m excited to be joining this exceptional team and look forward to helping the Company extend its innovative neuroscience pipeline and advance new medicines with the potential to make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients.”

Mr. Smith joins Prothena after serving as Chief Operating Officer at Iconic Therapeutics where he was responsible for business development, alliance management, commercialization and financing activities. Before Iconic Therapeutics, Mr. Smith was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy at Impax Laboratories where, as a member of the executive team, he was responsible for corporate strategy, portfolio management, business development and alliance management. Mr. Smith also held several positions of increasing responsibility at Amgen, including the head of strategy for the company’s biosimilars business unit and the head of strategy and transaction analysis supporting a variety of M&A and licensing activities. Prior to Amgen, Mr. Smith was a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Smith earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan and a Master of Business Administration at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs Graduate School of Business.

Inducement Grant under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4)

In connection with his employment, on March 2, 2020, the compensation committee of the Company’s board of directors granted Mr. Smith, an option to purchase 240,000 shares of the Company’s common stock. Each stock option has an exercise price per share equal to $11.12, which was the closing trading price on March 2, 2020, the date of the grant. The inducement award will vest over four years, with 25% of the underlying shares vesting on the one-year anniversary of the date of grant and 1/48th of the underlying shares vesting monthly thereafter over 36 months. The stock option was granted pursuant to the Company’s 2020 Employment Inducement Incentive Plan, which was approved by the Company’s board of directors in February 2020 under Rule 5635(c)(4) of The Nasdaq Global Market for equity grants to induce new employees to enter into employment with the Company.

About Prothena

Prothena Corporation plc is a clinical-stage neuroscience company with expertise in protein misfolding, focused on the discovery and development of novel therapies with the potential to fundamentally change the course of devastating diseases. Fueled by its deep scientific expertise built over decades of research, Prothena is advancing a pipeline of therapeutic candidates for a number of indications and novel targets for which its ability to integrate scientific insights around neurological dysfunction and the biology of misfolded proteins can be leveraged. Prothena’s partnered programs include prasinezumab (PRX002/RG7935), in collaboration with Roche for the potential treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other related synucleinopathies, and programs that target tau, TDP-43 and an undisclosed target in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb for the potential treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia (FTD) or other neurodegenerative diseases. Prothena’s proprietary programs include PRX004 for the potential treatment of ATTR amyloidosis, and programs that target Aβ (Amyloid beta) for the potential treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. For more information, please visit the Company’s website at www.prothena.com and follow us on Twitter @ProthenaCorp.